The property tax rate will remain flat again under Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks' proposed budget for next year — a plan that relies on everything from cutting positions to delaying a portion of county pension contributions to balance the books.

Brooks, a Republican, described her plan to the County Legislature on Tuesday night, saying it takes a "taxpayer-first" approach to closing a $45 million deficit driven mainly by state and federal mandates while still providing a high level of service to residents.

"This is a good budget that caps a full decade of property tax stability while preserving the fiscal and economic strength of our community," she said.

This is Brooks' 10th year drawing up a spending plan. A copy of her actual budget proposal was not available at the County Legislature's meeting, but was later posted online.

Brooks said her plan would hold the tax rate level at $8.99 for every $1,000 of a property's assessed value. Overall spending in the county's operating budget, which totals a little more than $1 billion, would decline by $3.8 million, she said.

The proposal includes what Brooks described as an "aggressive pursuit" of savings, including:

• Eliminating 121 county positions, mainly through attrition, at an estimated savings of about $6 million. Fifteen employees would be laid off across county government, including positions in the finance, health, environmental, human services and legal departments, said Robert Franklin, the county's chief financial officer, after Brooks' presentation.

• Deferring about $17 million in county contributions to the pension system, Franklin said. "It's certainly not an ideal solution," Brooks said. However, many counties take advantage of this option, and Monroe County has done so annually since 2010, Franklin said.

• Selling delinquent tax liens, which is expected to raise about $10 million, according to Franklin.

• A freeze in cost-of-living and merit-based step raises for management employees, which would save about $1 million, according to Brooks.

• Switching to a self-insured health plan for employees. This will save about $6.3 million without changing employee coverage or benefits, according to Brooks.

The budget will cut the county's long-term structural deficit by more than a third, according to Brooks.

The county executive stressed that the deficit is driven by spending that is mandated, often by the state or federal governments, for purposes such as the Medicaid insurance program. She called on county legislators to lobby state lawmakers for relief.

"Mandates are 83 percent of our budget, 100 percent of the problem," she said.

Part of that "mandated" figure includes the cost of fulfilling contracts the county has signed, Brooks later acknowledged.

Brooks said her plan includes no new "chargebacks," or service fees. Last year's budget introduced a new one: Charging suburban property owners separate fees for snow and ice removal, which until then had been funded through the county tax levy.

Responding to a letter-writing campaign and pressure from local advocates to boost county spending on child care subsidies by $1 million, Brooks said that figure would be impossible to meet without cutting other important services. But she said the county would boost its spending on child care by about $600,000, to a total of $4.8 million.

"I fully expect child care to become a political football this year," she said.

The county is required by the state to spend $4.2 million a year on the program, Brooks said.

The County Legislature's Democratic minority leader, Carrie Andrews, said after Brooks' presentation that she would be looking for more details about the spending plan.

"It is very early, obviously," she said. "The devil is in the details."

County lawmakers must schedule a public hearing on the budget. The legislature most likely will vote on the spending plan at its regular Dec. 10 meeting.